I ski, run, climb, bike, and travel. Sometimes with an Action Figure Mascot. These are my stories.

03 November 2016

Turns All Year: Month 60 (5 Years!)

I met Christy in October 2014 when she attended an event at The Mountaineers. We were premiering Pretty Faces, a ski film featuring only women, and Christy volunteered to help. She showed up in bright red ski bibs, adorned with a white helmet with a pink mohawk and glowing unicorn horn. This girl had ridiculousness written all over her, and I knew immediately we needed to be best friends forever.

I got to know Christy at more ladies' events, and have been lucky enough to partner with her on a few SheJumps/Mountaineers events. We've traveled together, enjoying turns together at Alta, SnowBird, and Schweitzer. We also shared a few soul-restoring days together at our local Crystal Mountain.

When it came time to organize a SheJumps fundraising climb of Mt. Rainier, Christy not only came up with the idea, but adeptly organized most of the trip. She's talented, smart, dedicated, and passionate, and she has more costumes than all of us combined. I have always been impressed Christy's endless enthusiasm and zest for life. This girl knows how to have a good time, and is superb at making people feel welcome and included. And to top it all off, she's a great mom to two girls, two dogs, and a barn-full of goats!

She's also a great skier. With October winding down and me without my monthly pilgrimage on skis, I was elated to get a text from Christy suggesting a day in zee mountains. She had a plan and we were GOING FOR IT!

The universe had other plans.

First, Christy got a flat tire. And not like a just-put-air-in-it-and-keep-driving sort of a flat tire, but a your-rim-is-ruined-drive-to-the-closest-gas-station-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 kind of flat tire. Always the considerate ski partner, she let me know right away and I enjoyed a nap in my car while she sorted it out. Actually, she managed to get her father in law to come tow the car, drop her kids at school, and get to me only in just over an hour. If that's not a special kind of skill, I don't know what is!

Then we arrived at zee mountain, and it looked like this:

Given the lack of snow in previous days, we weren't expecting pow, but we weren't expecting dirt. With little time to waste and a deadline for me to be back in town, we set off with the adventure dog Strider into "the snow" (quick safety note here: it's never a good idea to have a "I need to be back in town by X time" qualifier; it's fine, in fact a good idea, to set a turn-around time if you don't make your intended destination, but rushing is never a good idea and can lead to unintended consequences).

This is going to be "fun"!

Time to skin! Strider post-holed the whole way poor thing.

We hiked for a short time through mostly snow but also a lot of muck, until we reached the place where previous skin tracks started. We could have just walked all the way to the top of Naches Peak, but my rule for Turns All Year are "skis on my feet for an hour", which means uphill counts!

Photo by Christy.

Christy and her pooch.

Getting closer! Strider post-holing some more. Photo by Christy.

We made it to the top right when dense fog was rolling in. Of course. We ate our sammies and "rested" after nearly 600' of uphill climbing.

And we took selfies. Because: of course we did.

Smiles for days.

Then we "skied" down. It was...skiing. We got in some turns while laughing at our own lack of coordination and trying to dodge the rocks. We were mostly successful.

"Dropping!"

Styling!

"Carving!"

Chasing!

We were back at the trail in short order, but just because we were on the trail didn't mean I was ready for the skis to come off. We gingerly inched over the rocks to ski almost all of the way back to the car. Before we knew it, the little adventure was over.

They say "you don't know unless you go". In this case, we went and it was worse than expectations, but I've gone and won so many times that this felt like a win. It helps with an awesome adventure buddy! And hey, that's skiing in October.

In denial about running out of snow.

Two types of skiing: snow and water!

This guy in the parking lot took SO many photos of us. I dind't get the memo on making a more awesome face.